Lot and Lots of Goat Babies! 2/10/17

Hello SMALL Farm Enthusiasts,

Lily, our oldest child just turned 15.  Yes, on Feb 1st 2002,  she was
born at home with the help of a midwife, but it happens, they grow up.
And they grow up pretty nice, it seems. Lily owns 100% of the goats on
our farm here, she owns the guard dogs that guard them and she owns the
milk stall and shelters that move with them and the whole kit and
caboodle. It’s all hers, she makes 99% of the decisions and does 98% of
the work of the goats. (She has to have sisters fill in now, while she
goes on the Tampa delivery route every other Thursday, but before that
she did 100% of the work.)  (of course some of this is exaggerated
bragging too) She has learned to do hard things, for example, she wants
to keep all the goats but that would not be a profitable operation, she
sells some to make it happen. Right now she has some on Craig's List and
I know one or 2 she would REALLY like to see go to a good home if
anyone needs a good goat or 2. Oh yes, she has been selling goats on
Craig's List for years. In fact its a cheap thrill for me to casually
meet someone that has come to buy goats and make some small talk then
introduce them to Lily and let her go with them and make a sale and I go
back into the house or on to my next chore.  I love seeing the look on
their face that says, “you’re going to leave me with this kid to make a
deal………..I cannot bargain with her??!!”  Or the look that says “this kid
can’t sell me a goat, she is too young, kids do not own things to sell
let alone put adds on craigs list”. Or the look that says almost in
amazement……….”this is the person I have been emailing on craigs list?”
 Oh yes, all of those have happened more than twice!  I do not want to
knock college, but the school of hard knocks is a valid way to go for
some.

So, the first 5 days of February Lily’s goat herd doubled in numbers, I
think the number is 20 babies so far and few more to come yet. She had
21 goats of which 17 were pregnant if I am not mistaken, it’s hard to
keep up. So now begins the fun, the fun of babies and the fun of milking
all those goats, some of which have not yet been milked, so will need
training. The fun of processing all that milk into something sellable. 
We sell goats milk aplenty and we sell goat kefir and then some goat
yogurt. And then if we have milk left over we make for sale some goat
feta cheese. Not sure if any more goat products are in the works or not
and it may depend on need as necessity is the mother of invention you
know. So if you see something new on the website in the goat line try it
and support a young budding entrepreneur.  To see an old video we did,
about 6 years ago, of Lily and her goats go here: 

Now I have to give some background. Mama’s maiden name is Kilgore which
in ancient Scottish, we are told, means “keeper of the goats!” So it is
in the genes, GOATS are in the genes, and if you do not believe it, you
should see Lily with her goats. Or maybe you could be on the end of the
stick I have been on several times, trying to convince her to “get rid
of these silly old goats”.  Oh yes, I admit I have been tired of and
completely “over” these goats a couple times already. (it is NOT in MY
genes) But the dagger eyes that manifest, when I talk that way, are
enough to make you run. And I do not really mean it anyway as the goats
have been profitable every single year we have had them. The way we work
it is Lily does the work and we get 50% of every product sold. We
provide some things needed such as land, fencing, hay barn for winter
housing and when she started the goats she needed help with a lot of
things, now very little. So we get half the money and she gets
half………..it works. In the early years she made one or slightly more
mortgage payments per year, in recent years more like 2 to 3 and in the
future?? I had a thought lately that scared me, at first, but I warmed
to it quite a bit and there is nothing scary about it really. The
thought was, that if Lily keeps expanding with the goats and I keep
expanding with the cows, I may need to take over one of the many dairies
going out of business around here and convert it to a grazing dairy and
Lily will just have this whole place here.

We are also “talking” to a lady that owns 60 acres north of us, land
that joins or is right next to land we already own and we are really
hoping that she sells to us. It is perfect goat land, we REALLY want it
badly. We do not have the money for this land but would take a low
interest loan if it happens but if not we have 3 friends who want to
invest in land and let us lease it from them. So, either way, we are
very open to it happening right now. Gods will be done.    

Thanks for supporting a small, family farm and contributing to a more REGENERATIVE future,

Dennis and Alicia